Un artículo publicado en inglés y español, que te ayudará en tu lectura, pero principalmente sirve para expresar una opinión.

An article in English and Spanish which will help you in your reading, but mainly serves to express an opinion.

TEN DOLLAR WORDS

Palabras de Diez Dólares

John Wayne

By John James Carty

Basic English had a champion in the form of John Wayne, the famous  American movie star who died in 1979. He was an unlikely English teacher but he was an educated and accomplished  man. However,  as a film star of a particular kind he couldn’t afford to let anyone know that.

His role in the movies, the no-nonsense independent macho man (usually a cowboy), became his role in real life too. He was the first person I heard using the phrase ‘a ten-dollar word.’

In his dealings with British journalists he could rarely resist the temptation to mock their accents and he pounced on any word he considered to be too elegant, calling it ‘a ten-dollar word.’

It was a public ‘face’, of course. In his youth he was a student at the University of Southern California and he was undeniably a well-read man. But this all-America frontier hero couldn’t afford to be known as any kind of intellectual.

His ‘ignorant’ act has significance for us as students or teachers of English: we should avoid ten-dollar words until we’re about sixty years old or have an airport named after us (as he has – Orange County, California).

According to reports, the sort of words that could provoke him were ‘endeavor’ instead of ‘try’, ‘gratuity’ instead of ‘tip’, ‘wherewithal’ instead of ‘money’, ‘avocation’ instead of ‘hobby’ and most English words with a French flavor.

I didn’t agree with many of his political opinions but I think he has a point here, especially for students who are studying English as their second language. We must use plain words if we want people to understand us.

Maybe John Wayne didn’t know it, but he was in agreement with the great expert on British English, Sir Ernest Gowers, whose book  ‘Complete Plain Words’ (1954) is  considered to be the ‘bible’ of English word use. Sir Ernest wrote: ‘this book is wholly concerned with … the choice and arrangement of words in such a way as to get an idea as exactly as possible out of one mind into another.’

Unfortunately, for many students this advice reaches further down the price scale to what I might call five or even two-dollar words. For example, the verb ‘to enter’ will appear in your English dictionary.  But for regular use we say ‘to come in’, as in ‘May I come in?’ rather than ‘May I enter?’ which usually just sounds foreign or facetious.

Similarly with ‘persons’ as the plural of ‘person’ – it looks correct to the student but it isn’t (unless you’re a policeman giving evidence). Regular people say ‘people’.

How can you avoid the over-elegant use? Well, listen to good English. Also, read all the entries for the word in your dictionary, not just the first one. This will help you to find the true meaning and it will give you a feel for words.

There is a secret in all this for us – one that John Wayne, American, knew very well. If you study any language as a second or foreign language, you will eventually have a bigger vocabulary - and more correct grammar - than many of your native-born listeners. As teachers or advanced foreign students we must be like the movie stars; we must not talk ‘over the heads’ of our listeners.

Finally, never try to use words like ‘obloquy’ or ‘interstitially’ (which probably sound quite reasonable in Spanish). These are hundred-dollar words and John Wayne would probably have got his six-guns out if he’d heard them. And if he did, I wouldn’t have called the sheriff to save you.